utsukushii3A

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, YUZU!!!

We're supposed to practice in Basic Skills 1, but I tested out of it, so I never did. I rarely fall on anything but hydroblading, but no coach has ever said anything about needing to practice. You can and probably should ask about it, but you might not need to practice. I don't know, I looked it up out of curiosity, and all it said was things like "try to fall on somewhere more padded like your butt or thigh" and "put your arms out to break your fall," and I was just thinking, "Doesn't everyone do that?" I guess some people go limp when they fall or something? And yes, rental skates hurt.

I got to learn camel spins at my lesson today! I had no idea that they were even safe to try at my level. And I was pretty good at them for a first try! I'm getting pretty good at the entries to all the spins I've learned. I just have to work on, you know, actually revolving more than once or twice.

Does anyone know of any European sites that ship European Under Armour to the USA? The US sizes wouldn't fit me.

I can't rank them either. There are some that have special meaning to me either because of what he overcame to perform them or because of personal reasons, and some that I watch more than others, but they all pretty much coagulate into an amorphous blob of amazing-ness that I can't really extract anything specific from. My favorite of all used to be Seimei, but I think Otonal and Origin have both tied with it. Only time will tell if it stays that way. And of course, Olympic PW will always be very, very special to me, because that was the first time I ever laid eyes on Yuzu, and it was skating love at first sight. That being said, the ones I keep going back to are Olympic Seimei, Notte Stellata and PW, WTT and GPF POTO, and Hana ni Nare, but that's only due to time constraints. Once this stretch of endless (insert potentially identifying work stuff here) is over, there will definitely be additions to that.

Well, I guess the sword cuts both ways with how I always feel like I'm bending my knees more and hydroblading much lower than I really am. I also always feel like I'm leaning forward too much on cross rolls and inside Ina Bauers and spread eagles. Well... I'm not. At all. I'm almost perfectly straight, and it looks so much better than I thought it would. Also, my jump landings have gotten so pretty, OMG, I can't believe that's me in the videos. Now I just need to get the rest of the jump to the same quality. And stop two-footing and nearly underrotating my loops and prerotating my toe loops and Salchows. And bend my !#@%$@^# knees. And whatever that thing is called where Yuzu bends low on one knee and folds his other leg on top of the knee? I can totally do that. ...Yeah, if you can't tell, a large part of my practice sessions consist of just copying Yuzu. (The rest consists of refining my edge control and depth and jump technique so I can... copy Yuzu's technical and skating skills as well as his moves. ) But I do have some of my own little trademarks, too. Those are a secret, in case anyone I might compete against in the future is reading this.

Aww, that's sweet how he says "we" instead of "he" sometimes. They're all in it together. GOOOOOOOOO YUZU!

I don't know what kind of translations are floating around the internet, but I think I watched all the post-Worlds interviews, and really, there was nothing scary in them. He said he's all motivated and excited about having a strong rival he wants to beat and new things to try out. We should be more worried for Brian's hair than for Yuzu. As for a project, he already told us what he needs: just to support and believe in him.

Okay, now that Yuzu's season is over, I'm taking a semi-hiatus from forums (i.e. basically just looking at pictures and fangirling and occasional translating, no discussions or anything) to catch up on some work stuff I've been putting off due to Worlds and some annoying life distractions. There will be no more talk of scores or Nathan Chen from me unless Nathan takes a cute picture with Yuzu or I figure out which former classmate or coworker of mine it was that his hairstyle reminded me of at the gala or he decides to take a hiatus from skating to focus on school or something. Yuzu asked us to believe in him and support him, and that's what I'll do. He's far from stupid, I'm sure he'll make the right decisions, and I hope people keep in mind that the right decisions for him could very well be decisions they disagree with or would never make for themselves, but that doesn't make them any less right for him. He still beat world records with two programs that weren't even designed for maximum points. He's still the first to score 200+ and 300+ under the new system, and that it only lasted 5 minutes can never change that he was indeed the first. Honestly, I never said it because I didn't think it was realistic for him to do safely, but if he thinks it might be, I won't second guess that and will just say that I've wanted to see him do all the types of quads for a very, very long time. If he can, it will be glorious. If he can't, he's still Yuzu. No scores can change, "There are good skaters, there are great skaters, and then there's Yuzuru Hanyu."

@micaelis, Happy Belated Birthday!

And speaking of parents and Yuzu, I finally got my mom to take a break and watch HYK! The notification noise from the forum kept going off, so I paused the video to close the window, and she was like, "Nooo, how dare you interrupt him!?" She said she understands now why it was so important to me to be up at 4 in the morning watching live, too. And now I'm wondering just how long my dad watched figure skating. I wonder if he was a lifelong fan like I am. (He's probably up in Heaven glad that an American won but begrudgingly admitting that Yuzu was robbed of, if not the gold medal, at least of some more points. He had this peculiar way of rooting for the Americans right up until the very end but then changing his mind at the last minute if someone else really did skate better. Now that I think about it, the last time we ever talked about figure skating, he begrudgingly admitted that Yuzu deserved his Sochi gold. )

My mom and I see it, too. Speaking of signs, I saw some swans on the way to work the other day and was sure hoping they'd be a sign of Yuzu winning gold, but I guess they were just swans.

Handsome lads. Dima's suit looks like it's made out of a similar material to Yuzu's costume pants. I wonder if Yuzu saw it and wished he'd thought of that.

Translation: 4Lo: We are always completely, 4S (actually 4T, but reversed for grammar): firmly within 4T (actually 4S): your mind and body, 3A: so yeah, 1Eu: believe!!

Wow, my mom is busy and can't watch Yuzu with me right now, and just having to wait a few hours is making me sad. My heart goes out to all of you whose families won't watch with you at all! It's only a few minutes, what's the big deal?